Sometimes the obvious is worth repeating:
You need to know who your customers are and what you are offering them. If it is rock-bottom prices, you need to be cheaper than anyone else. If it is a glitzy department store, glitz is what you have to provide. (…)
Customers may not always be right, but they certainly matter. Unless you can give them what your competitors cannot, you have no business.
via FT.com.